Alain Mabanckou - The Lights of Pointe-Noire

In the silence that follows I sense that he wants to describe my mother’s last days, and is looking for the right words, or rather, wondering how to begin. He’s seen my face grow troubled, and he stops himself. We leave that chapter unopened, though it’s there in both our minds.

We leave the main house and go over to my mother’s castle. Outside the shack he turns to me and shows me his hands:

‘These are the hands that built this place, remember? You helped me a bit, you really wanted to be useful! The house isn’t the same now, there’s only half of it left, I had to cut the other part off when your mother died. I couldn’t bear to see the room she slept in…

He strokes the planks thoughtfully:

These planks speak to me at night… Do you know the same are used to make coffins?’

I nod my head. He was a great joiner in his day, and made the frames of many of the houses in this town. I never liked it when he made coffins and the bereaved families waited around outside his workshop.

I reach out and touch the planks too. Pleased by my gesture, he immediately says:

‘Yes, touch them, they’re glad to see you. They know who we are, they were there at the start. Whenever they moan it makes me think your mother’s suffering up there, and wants me to come and join her…’

I still don’t interrupt the flow of what seem like thoughts he’s been saving up for a long time now, for the day he could whisper them to me.

‘It seems like death’s had it in for us,’ he goes on. ‘Maybe there’s a curse on this patch of land, because of the way I treated Miguel. Night and day I think of the misery I inflicted on that dog…’

An image of Miguel pops into my head. I hear him barking, then whimpering with thirst and hunger. Once the link between myself and my imaginary sisters, he died at the foot of the mango tree that used to dominate the plot. Did the neighbours hear his desperate cries? And this tree, witness to the scene, why didn’t it set the poor beast free? Maman Pauline was crazy about Miguel, he was a present from one of her girlfriends who just wanted to get rid of the litter of puppies. People said she had so many dogs she sometimes threw some into the River Tchinouka. I was the one who thought of the name Miguel for our new arrival, who steadily grew each time I filled his bowl with milk. Feeding the dog was like a game for me, and he followed me round the whole day long, hoping for his next feed. He listened to me with his ears pricked up, and answered by wagging his tail like wind-screen wipers. I’d learned to reckon a dog’s age with him. Within a single year he was older than me, almost twice my age. I was proud to fix a sign at the entrance to the plot that said ‘Beware of the dog.’ I walked with him round the backstreets of the Voungou neighbourhood, confident he would be my constant protector. Alas, when some children my age threw stones at us, Miguel opted to hide behind me rather than go and bite them as he would have done if we had been at home and someone had come and attacked us. I realised that most dogs were only brave inside the boundaries of their master’s home. So often I had seen our dog, who was so timid when we were out and about, fling himself around the yard in a frenzy with his tail between his legs, barking his head off outside the house, fit to burst our eardrums. I loved him in spite of this, and he returned my love, licking my little hands with his tongue, or standing up on his two feet. Our happiness was not to last. My mother went away for a month and I was sent, for the first time, to stay with my mother’s military brother, Jean-Marie Moulounda, in Brazzaville. Papa Roger was at Maman Martine’s. The whole house was practically empty; Grand Poupy was at Sibiti and the various aunts had gone back to Louboulou to work in the fields. Only Uncle Mompéro was left, and my mother had asked him to look after Miguel, to feed him three times a day and take him for walks so he could do his business outside our plot. My uncle did this for two or three days. Then he left town himself to go and work on a site in Dolisie, the third-biggest town in the country, over three hundred kilometres from Pointe-Noire, where they were building a primary school. Instead of letting the dog wander free on our land, for a few days he had kept him tied up with a piece of rope to the foot of the mango tree, where he came and gave him his food and water, as Maman Pauline had asked. The day of his departure for Dolisie, my uncle forgot about Miguel and left him captive. On his return, a few hours before his sister, the poor beast was no longer of this world. Papa Roger and Maman Pauline cried murder. They considered trying to hide Miguel’s death from me. But they knew that when I got back from Brazzaville the next day, the first thing I would ask was: ‘Where’s Miguel?’

Uncle Mompéro suggested buying another dog. My mother was against this. She did not wish to sully the memory of Miguel, and added that if they hadn’t been capable of looking after one dog, there was no reason to think they would do better with the next one.

When I got home, I was given to believe that Miguel had succumbed to a heart attack. Naively, I replied:

‘But dogs don’t die of heart attacks, because they don’t have all those problems in the heart that humans have.’

Uncle Mompéro took me to one side and told me the truth:

‘You were right, my boy, dogs don’t die of heart attacks… Miguel died because of my stupidity. I’m an imbecile, I accept that. When I left for Dolisie I completely forgot we had a dog, and that I’d tied him up. If I’d only left him unattached he would have survived. But it’s my fault, please don’t hate me for it. Your mother doesn’t want me to buy another dog, but if you want I’ll buy you one anyway…’

‘Don’t buy another dog…’

‘But why not?’

‘Because we didn’t buy Miguel… he was given to us. And anyway, when someone dies do you buy someone else to replace them?’

‘I could go and see the woman who gave your mother Miguel and if her dog’s had some more puppies we’d at least have a puppy from the same family as Miguel and…’

‘No, it was Miguel I loved, I don’t want another dog in my life, then when I think of dogs, I’ll only ever think of him…’

Uncle Mompéro fixes a plank that’s come loose from the shack, and turns to me:

‘That’s right, mon petit , Miguel’s always with me, as your mother is. When we had the first family reunion I couldn’t speak about him in front of everyone. It’s just the two of us today, face to face, please forgive me, help me wipe this curse away, I’m going down on my knees now…’

He goes down on one knee, and before he can get down on both I stop him:

‘No, Uncle, don’t do that, there’s no curse on this plot…’

‘How do you know? Animals are our relatives, our doubles, you said so in your book about the porcupine…’

‘I was only reporting what Maman used to tell me. There are friendly doubles, too, Miguel was one of those, he’s forgiven you for what you did…’

A smile appears on his face:

‘And do you forgive me too?’

‘I never held it against you for one moment, Uncle!’

He wipes his eyes with the back of his right hand. Tears no doubt released by my removal of this thorn from his foot.

We go back to the main house.

This is my third visit, but this time there’s no family reunion. Before I leave the plot, my uncle adopts a solemn air and says:

‘Are you already going back to where the whites are putting you up in the centre of town? My brother Matété looked for you there yesterday, they said you were out all the time. It’s very important, he wants to see you alone. Just agree to what he asks, he and I have talked about it… Will you leave me at least five thousand CFA francs? I just need to buy some little things like razors, toothpaste, soap…’